The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups Reviews

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Talent Code unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups and provides tomorrow’s leaders with the tools to build a cohesive, motivated culture.

Where does great culture come from? How do you build and sustain it in your group, or strengthen a culture that needs fixing?

In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle goes inside some of the world’s most successful organizations—including the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six, IDEO, and the San Antonio Spurs—and reveals what makes them tick. He demystifies the culture-building process by identifying three key skills that generate cohesion and cooperation, and explains how diverse groups learn to function with a single mind. Drawing on examples that range from Internet retailer Zappos to the comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade to a daring gang of jewel thieves, Coyle offers specific strategies that trigger learning, spark collaboration, build trust, and drive positive change. Coyle unearths helpful stories of failure that illustrate what not to do, troubleshoots common pitfalls, and shares advice about reforming a toxic culture. Combining leading-edge science, on-the-ground insights from world-class leaders, and practical ideas for action, The Culture Code offers a roadmap for creating an environment where innovation flourishes, problems get solved, and expectations are exceeded.

Culture is not something you are—it’s something you do. The Culture Code puts the power in your hands. No matter the size of your group or your goal, this book can teach you the principles of cultural chemistry that transform individuals into teams that can accomplish amazing things together.

Advance praise for The Culture Code

“I’ve been waiting years for someone to write this book—I’ve built it up in my mind into something extraordinary. But it is even better than I imagined. Daniel Coyle has produced a truly brilliant, mesmerizing read that demystifies the magic of great groups. It blows all other books on culture right out of the water.”—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Option B, Originals, and Give and Take

“If you want to understand how successful groups work—the signals they transmit, the language they speak, the cues that foster creativity—you won’t find a more essential guide than The Culture Code.”—Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better

There are a lot of books about culture and how to create a strong and healthy one. Daniel Coyle knew that a strong and effective culture is part of the secret sauce of successful organizations. He knew that âA strong culture increases net income 756 percent over 11 years, according to a Harvard study of more than 200 companies.â He thought he could look at strong cultures in a different way and write a book about it. Hereâs how he puts it.

âI spent the last four years visiting and researching eight of the worldâs most successful groups, including a special-ops military unit, an inner-city school, a professional basketball team, a movie studio, a comedy troupe, a gang of jewel thieves, and others. I found that their cultures are created by a specific set of skillsâ

Coyle started with a definition of culture thatâs a little bit different than the norm. He says, âCulture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. Itâs not something you are, itâs something you do.â

So, what is it that you do? What do people in organizations that create strong cultures do that their peers in other organizations donât do?

Coyle organizes the book into three sections, each one of which relates to a specific skillset. The three skills are: build safety; share vulnerability; and establish purpose.

There are several chapters about each skill. Thereâs a good mix of stories and studies. Coyle chooses his examples carefully and tells their stories well. He doesnât use bullet points or frequent summaries, so sometimes you will work to tease out his meaning. You can get a sense of this if you review my highlights from the Culture Code on Goodreads.

Most business authors put summaries of key points or action steps at the end of every chapter. Coyle doesnât. Instead, he includes a chapter at the end of every section, titled âIdeas for Action.â That chapter functions as a review of the other chapters in the section. I think thatâs a good device, but Iâd rather he also put his key points at the end of every chapter.

Coyleâs a good storyteller and he makes it a point to try to tell stories you may have heard before from an angle where you havenât seen them before. One of those stories is the story about Tylenol and its credo. Another is the story of the founding of Pixar.

In telling those stories, Coyle leaves out some interesting and potentially helpful things. For example, he tells us about the meeting where Johnson & Johnson executives reviewed the companyâs credo to see if it should be revised. We know there was a meeting. But Coyle never tells us whether they changed the credo or not at that meeting. He simply jumps ahead to the Tylenol crisis, where the credo became guiding principles for one of the most successful disaster recovery examples ever.

Then, thereâs the story of Ed Catmull and Pixar. Coyle says, âIf you set out to design a life that represented the perfect merger of art and science, you might design one that looks like Catmullâs.â Then, just below, after mentioning a little bit about Catmullâs parents and his early interests, he says âAfter college, he landed a job with George Lucasâ¦â

Well yes, it was, technically, âafter college,â but it was a full five years after Catmull got his PhD. And, after talking about the life as a model for the perfect merger of art and science, Coyle leaves out the fact that in his pre-Lucas and pre-Pixar days, Ed Catmull worked on projects for ARPA during the time he was working as a physicist.

Those are important things to know if you want to learn how Ed Catmull developed into the manager he is today. You can learn more about them in his book, Creativity, Inc, about his life and Pixar.

Special Note

Chapters 15 and 16 are worth reading, even if you skip everything else. Chapter 15 is âHow to Lead for Proficiencyâ while chapter 16 is âHow to Lead for Creativity.â The two skills are different and which one you choose as a manager will determine what values you treasure and what kinds of performance you optimize.

In A Nutshell

This is a book that will help you create a strong and supportive culture where you are. There are problems with the book, but theyâre not big enough or consistent enough to really detract from the value. If you want to learn about how to create and maintain a positive and strong culture in your team or organization, buy and read The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle.

I am a pastor. I donât run a business, nor do I work in that environment. Yet, I read these books from time to time with an eye on how to build relationships and learning new ways of doing things. There is a lot in here that a pastor can learn from as we shepherd our flocks. Such as the power of vulnerability. So often pastors want to cover up their mistakes or present themselves as unflawed, confident leaders that donât need any help. Then we wonder why the congregation does not trust us and finds it difficult to come to us with their problems. It is hard to shepherd when you are shut out. In this book, we learn that the best leaders in the most successful cultures have a different way of approaching people. They show their vulnerability and it allows people to show theirs, to build trust and confidence in each other. That resonated with me. Also learning to listen.It strikes me that often people feel stuck in jobs that they donât like. They feel betrayed by coworkers who call in sick or donât even bother. The culture is one of mistrust and betrayal. Management doesnât know what to do, and the people being managed even less so. This book shows that you donât have to be in management to start making the difference. You can learn to diffuse problems, communicate joy and interest and make a group start working more effectively and cohesively even if you are the one being âmanaged.â You can change your hostile work environment into a friendly one, but it takes awareness, and a willingness to face challenges.

This review is from: The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups (Hardcover)

Dan Coyleâs The Culture Code is a deep dive into what is it that makes successful groups. Like The Talent Code, this book helps us understand what separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. He offers practical suggestions about strategies to use these tools in your own situations. I have the feeling I will be rereading this one a lot! This is a MUST READ!!